


that vibrant morning rise

by kimaracretak



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Domesticity, F/F, Foreshadowing, Gen, Hair Dyeing, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 06:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14635695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Ben tumbles out of the sea just as the last of the suns start to dip beneath the waves, clambers into Leia's lap dripping wet with the bits of shells caught in his long curls chiming their own welcome."Hi," he says, one hand pressed to her cheek, the other stretching out for Amilyn's where she sits curled in the chair next to Leia's, and the evening's high tide nearly drowning out his voice.On vacations and beginnings





	that vibrant morning rise

**Author's Note:**

> title from visions of atlantis, 'return to lemuria'
> 
> fills my genpromp_bingo square 'Pink (Love it, Loathe it, Embrace it, Reject it)'

Ben tumbles out of the sea just as the last of the suns start to dip beneath the waves, clambers into Leia's lap dripping wet with the bits of shells caught in his long curls chiming their own welcome.

"Hi," he says, one hand pressed to her cheek, the other stretching out for Amilyn's where she sits curled in the chair next to Leia's, and the evening's high tide nearly drowning out his voice.

He's so quiet, for six years old. Too quiet, Leia thinks sometimes, though it means he fits well on Gatalenta, almost better than he ever had in their Hanna City apartments.

"Hi yourself," Leia says, kissing the tip of his nose and reaching down for a towel to wrap around his small shivering body. Is it really that cold?

She glances out to the suns as Ben busies himself divvying up his shell collection between her lap and Amilyn's. Ilmatar and Nakki hover at the horizon, spilling pink and gold twilight across the pale blue waters - as close to true night as this part of the planet ever gets. Ben's skin is clammy under her soothing hands, even though the sea hasn't had time to cool from its midafternoon heat.

"What did you find, little star?" Amilyn asks. "Did you have adventures while your mama and I waited up here for you?"

"You should have been there," Ben says, and Leia tells herself it's just her imagination conjuring up an accusatory tone underlying his excitement. She and Amilyn had taken turns playing in the waves with him and dealing with the reports Leia had had to bring with her, even though the Senate was in recess. And when his childish energy had outlasted theirs, they'd watched from the shore, close enough that he wouldn't even have to yell.

Her worry fades somewhat as Ben chatters on, intent on describing in perfect detail the castle in the seaweed bloom and the burnt-faced shark he'd fought there. Maybe she'll ask him if he wants to draw it later, use his birthday inks for the first time while she makes dinner with Amilyn.

But something about the level of detail in his story pulls unhappily at her, and when she meets Amilyn's eyes over Ben's head she knows she feels it too.

"Why don't you run up ahead to the house?" Leia asks, as Ben's story winds towards a stopping point. "You should rinse off before dinner, and maybe get out your new inks. We'll be right up," she adds, when he squints suspiciously at her. "You don't want to have to carry things, do you?"

His face scrunches up in displeasure, and she runs her hand through his curls one last time as he hops off her lap and back towards the dunes.

"The droids will get everything, Leia, don't worry," Amilyn says as she gets to her feet and offers Leia her hand.

Leia stands unsteadily on the shifting sands, leaning into Amilyn's side and wrapping her arm around her waist. "He was too close to shore to see that, wasn't he?" she asks quietly as they follow much more slowly in Ben's footsteps, already starting to fade under the evening breeze. "We would have - if he'd actually -"

"Of course," Amilyn says, but her arm tightens around Leia's shoulders. "He likes telling stories, is all. Better now than in his dreams."

His dreams. Ben's nightmares can fade into the background in Hanna City, lost amidst the worries and imaginings of a planet full of life. Here, in Amilyn's childhood home, with just the three of them and the Force, they're impossible to ignore, even though Leia thinks they're less intense.

Ben hasn't woken up crying since they've been here, at any rate. Leia doesn't want to think too much on what things will be like back on Chandrila.

"Hey," Amilyn says seriously, and it's only then Leia notices they've reached the doorway. She looks up, unwilling to let go of Amilyn just yet. "He's just a child, Leia. These things will end, like the war ended. You're doing everything you can."

And she sounds so calm, so certain, that Leia can't help but believe her, can't do anything but push up on her tiptoes and sink her free hand into Amilyn's pale green hair and kiss her, lingering and sweet.

"Maybe I'll do your hair tonight," Amilyn muses when Leia pulls back to rest her forehead against Amilyn's chest. "A sort of golden blue like the ocean. It would go well with your eyes."

Leia laughs, her worries eased if not forgotten. "I wouldn't wear the colours nearly as well as you." For everything they've shared, all the freedoms Amilyn has shown her, she still remains unaccountably reluctant to dye her hair. But ... "What about Ben's instead?" she suggest, as Amilyn's fingers toy with the ends of her salt-damp braid. "Pink like the twilight."

She can feel the curve of Amilyn's smile pressing into the top of her head, but she can also her the uncertainty in her voice when she says, "If you think he'll let me."

"He will," Leia says, but even as the words leave her mouth she wonders if they're really true. "He likes you. Sometimes I think he likes you more than me."

"Leia," Amilyn says reproachfully, but she doesn't disagree.

"Let's go inside," Leia says, before she has the chance to say anything else. Even in the circle of Amilyn's arms, it's suddenly unaccountably cold on the sands.

 

**

 

Ben is already in the kitchen, dressed and ruffled in such a way that Leia suspects he didn't so much rinse off as stick his head in the sonic for thirty seconds, but she'll take what she can. He's talking circles around Amilyn's beleaguered kitchen droid, describing the shark from earlier in even more disturbing detail.

Leia squeezes Amilyn's hand, unsure exactly what sort of reassurance she's seeking. _At least he's talking_ , she thinks, and says, "Ben, if you help set the table, Amilyn will dye your hair tonight."

"Yeah!" he crows, breaking off mid-battle narration to spin in a circle and realise he has no idea where any of the dishes are kept.

For a moment, as Leia watches Ben and Amilyn and the droid all manage to get the food on the table, it feels unaccountably domestic. Like here in this kitchen the war really is over, that she doesn't have a Senate to return to and Amilyn doesn't have reports of Imperial sympathisers to chase down and Luke and Han will come back safely from their latest trip searching for Force-sensitive children and there isn't a darkness clinging to Ben's dreams that reminds her of ...

No. She's not going to bring his name into this moment of peace.

Ben is quiet through dinner, all too willing to let seaweed castles take a backseat to the promise of food. Leia feels like she should say something, anything to complement the crashing surf outside and the warmth of Amilyn's thigh pressed against hers inside.

But she doesn't. She reaches over to push one of Ben's unruly locks of hair away from where it's landed on his plate and lets that be enough.

 

**

 

"What colour hair, little star?" Amilyn asks as she clears the dishes.

Ben looks up, startled, and the surprise on his face breaks Leia's heart. "You mean it?"

"Of course." Amilyn runs a hand through his hair, avoiding catching any of her rings with long practise. Leia privately resolves, not for the first time, to try for fewer late nights when the Senate reconvenes. "You have beautiful hair, just like your mother's. But since she's boring ..." She winks at Leia, lowers her voice conspiratorially.

Ben bites his lip and doesn't meet their eyes. "Maybe pink?" he asks softly.

"I think that sounds perfect." Amilyn smiles. "Race you to the tub?"

He's off down the hallway almost before she's finished the sentence, but Amilyn lingers, searching Leia's face for ... she's not sure what, but she can feel Amilyn's concern like a physical thing, vibrating taut in the Force between them.

 _I'll be right there_ , she thinks, unsure how much of it Amilyn will pick up. Neither of them are well-trained, despite Luke's efforts, but then, they've never needed the Force to understand each other.

Leia sips at her iced tea, listening to the snatches of conversation that float down the hall Sometimes she wishes Ben took more after Amilyn, that he didn't have so much of his absent father's heart and his dead grandfather's anger, but nights like this, she thinks they'll make it through anyway, stars take the darkness.

Ben's hair is half-white by the time she settles on the side of the tub next to him, the better for the pink to take. There's a tiredness to his eyes that he's far too young for, but there's a small smile curving his lips as Amilyn works, one that Leia hasn't seen in far too long.

It's so _hard_ to think of him as a child sometimes.

"What are you thinking about?" Amilyn asks softly, her hands working through long-memorised movements as Ben studies his datapad as intently as if he were scrutinising Leia's own budget reports and not the collection of Gatalentan myths Amilyn had given him.

Leia shrugs, not quite willing to give voice to her true thoughts while Ben's within earshot. "We waited too long to come here," she says instead.

Amilyn leaves it there, but her look makes it clear she knows exactly what Leia's thinking. "Tilt your chin up, Ben," she says, her eyes never leaving Leia's. "Leia, can you pass me -"

The dye bottle's on Leia's side of the tub and she hands it over, smiling as Amilyn's fingertips linger against hers for as long as possible.

Pink blooms down Ben's hair in waves, a Gatalentan sunset to match the breaking of Chandrila's dawn. It feels like the beginning of something, amidst the gauze and tile of Amilyn's 'fresher, but the beginning of _what_ , Leia couldn't say.

Amilyn's fingertips are still stained with the dye when they tuck Ben into bed with the promise that the shark will stay in the ocean and can't hurt in him dreams, when she undresses Leia in the golden-pink glow reflecting off the waters. "Thank you," Leia says, and then nothing else because there are no words for everything Amilyn is, for all that she's done.

Amilyn is warm curled against her in bed, warm in the Force around her on this unseasonably cold night. Leia chains kisses along Amilyn's collarbones and hopes it will be enough, forever.


End file.
